To explain in lay-terms what this means, I need to mention that the local IP addresses which computers have on a LAN do exist, in addition to which Windows has introduced its own way of giving the local computers names. Linux can mimic how this works, using its ‘Samba’ software suite, but also tries to avoid ‘NetBIOS’ (naming) as much as possible, outside of Samba network browsing, or ‘copying-and-pasting of files, between computers on a LAN’.

Just like domain-names need to be resolved into IP addresses on the Internet, which is the WAN to this LAN – the Wide-Area Network – on the Local Area Network, computer-names also need to be resolved into IP addresses, before the computers can actually ‘talk to each other graphically’. Traditionally, Windows offered its whimsical mechanism for doing so, which was named NetBIOS, by which any and every computer could act as the WINS server – thus offering its repository of LAN locations to the WINS clients, but alternatively, there could also exist one dedicated WINS server.

What I had grown used to, was that on my LAN, the router would insist that it be my WINS server, thus ‘not trusting’ any of my Linux boxes to do so in some way. I therefore had to defer to this service, as provided by the router.

I had previously set my ‘/etc/samba/smb.conf‘ to

wins support = no
dns proxy = yes

Well as of Wednesday, the LAN had suddenly ‘looked different’ according to client-browsers. Each computer had suddenly remained aware only of its own identity, with no Workgroup of other computers to network with.

This was all happening, while my connection to the WAN still seemed secure and operative.

Long story short, I think that my ISP may have performed the Firmware Update, and that according to the new firmware version, the router was suddenly not willing to provide this service anymore. And so what I felt I had to do next, was change these settings back to

wins support = no
dns proxy = no

Now that I have done so, each computer can ‘see’ my whole Workgroup again – which was apparently not feasible according to earlier experiences.

Further, for laypeople I might want to emphasize, that it is not just a frivolous exercise of mine, to give each computer a name. If they did not have names, then according to the screen-shot below, I would also not be able to tell them apart, since they all have the same icon anyway:

Now I suppose that an inquiring mind might ask, “Since Linux can imitate Windows, why does Dirk not just set ‘wins support = yes‘ as well?” My answer to this hypothetical question would be, that

According to common sense, this option will just make the current machine available, as a potential WINS Server, but

In my practical experience, the LAN will interpret this as more of an imperative gesture, of a kind that will actually cause a feud to break out between the machines.

In my experience, if I even set one of my Linux machines to do this, all the other Linux machines will refer to its repository of (4) LAN names, the others becoming clients, but the Windows 7 machine named ‘Mithral’ will refuse to have it. In this case, Mithral will insist that it must be the WINS Server, and not some Linux box. And then, further logic-testing of which machines can see which, will reveal that in practice, I must leave this option switched off, if there is also to be any Windows machine to share the LAN with.

On my Linux machines, I generally have the Samba server installed, to ease the simple transfer of data over my LAN. But it can happen that during an initial install, a computer of mine only has the Samba client installed, not the server. This initially results in a computer which remains invisible to LAN-browsing, but which can browse the Samba shares of other computers.

Recently, an upgrade to the Samba packages I had installed on the laptop I name ‘Klystron’, also pulled in as dependencies, the actual Samba server, which next made that laptop visible to the LAN-browsing of my other computers.

And so what I thought next, was that I would not have to set up this new Samba-installation, in that it should default to safe behavior when not configured. And it turns out I was wrong.

The behavior of the new Samba setup was such, that it did not allow unauthorized fetching of user shares, but also such, that that laptop would sometimes just seem to disconnect from the Samba servers on the other computers.

And so what I have learned, is that every time we install Samba, we must also customize ‘/etc/samba/smb.conf‘, so that this configuration is compatible with whatever we have set up on our LAN. I just did so, this afternoon. And ‘Klystron’ then reappeared in the LAN-browsing of my other computers, including to the Windows 7 machine I name ‘Mithral’, without requiring any reboots from me.

The fact remains that ‘Klystron’ has an empty ‘smbpasswd’ list, and that it does not share out any user data. But still, it needed to be configured.